Boris Johnson attacks Labour in row over cancelled Trump visitNo 10 backs foreign secretary in saying Corbyn and London mayor putting US-UK relations at risk after embassy trip called off

Fri 12 Jan 2018 12.37 GMT Last modified on Fri 12 Jan 2018 17.49 GMT

Downing Street has accused Labour of risking relations with the US by saying Donald Trump is not welcome in Britain, after the president cancelled a visit planned for next month amid the threat of mass protests.

In a move that ties No 10 ever more closely to Trump, a Downing Street source supported a comment by Boris Johnson in which the foreign secretary condemned Jeremy Corbyn and the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, for opposing a presidential visit.

A group of far-right protesters holding American flags disrupted an event featuring London Mayor Sadiq Khan on Saturday, attempting to conduct a “citizen’s arrest” of the mayor after he dissed U.S. President Donald Trump. Khan’s speech on gender equality at the Fabian Society was delayed by several minutes as police ushered the demonstrators out of the building, according to multiple reports. The protesters, believed to be members of the White Pendragons group, accused Khan of “subverting the English constitution” and demanded he be arrested. They were escorted out by police after several minutes of their “non-violent” protest. The incident appeared to stem from Khan’s remarks on Trump’s planned visit to London, which he said was canceled because the American president feared widespread protests. After the protesters were ousted on Saturday, Khan took another jab at Trump. “It is a pleasure to be here even though we were distracted by the actions of what some would call very stable geniuses,” he said.

“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

BBC News wrote:Suffragettes: 100 years since women won the right to vote - BBC News

Published on 6 Feb 2018

One hundred years ago today women finally won the right to vote. The Representation of the People Act meant that women over 30 who owned property could at last have their say. It was a right that was fought for and won by the suffragette movement. It was a movement that began in Manchester. Its leader was Emmeline Pankhurst. Our Correspondent Elaine Dunkley looks back at her legacy.

Note: In the USA the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote on August 18, 1920.

Cladding at Grenfell Tower and other housing blocks never tested
Sean O’Neill, Chief Reporter
February 7 2018, 12:01am, The Times

Cladding systems like that installed at Grenfell Tower and since found on hundreds of buildings were not put through legally required fire safety tests, investigators believe.

Eight months after the fire that killed 71 people, The Times understands that three separate investigations have yet to find any record of independent tests on the combination of cladding and insulation materials used at Grenfell Tower or similar materials at 299 other high-rise buildings across England.

To comply with building regulations, external cladding should pass either a large-scale laboratory fire test or a “desktop study”, modelling how the materials would behave in fire.

The UK have identified the class of Nerve gas poisoning used in attempt to kill russian ex-spy

Focus turns to "unbelievably cruel" nerve agent used in attack on Russian ex-spy

LONDON -- President Trump joined British Prime Minister Theresa May in calling for Russia to come clean about the poisoning of a former spy in England. That came as another Russian turned up dead in London. The body of Russian exile Nikolai Glushkov was discovered Monday night, less than two weeks after Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned by a military-grade nerve agent made in Russia.

Glushkov was an opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and joins a list of 14 other Russians who have died on British soil -- some under mysterious circumstances -- and whose cases are now being reviewed. Skripal and his daughter Yulia remain in critical condition, and the police detective who was first on the scene is still in serious but stable condition.

The chemical nerve agent used in the attack was Novichok, a particularly lethal weapon developed by Moscow near the end of the Cold War.

"It's an unbelievably cruel and unpleasant way to go," says toxicologist Andrea Sella. "In terms of the amount, we are literally talking about a few drops here, are sufficient. The real crucial question is how you deliver it."

Sella says Novichok is made by mixing two relatively harmless compounds together, which become instantly lethal. It is usually found as a liquid and can be sprayed or swallowed.

"We speak of these as weapons of terror because they really are," he said.

Soviet Scientist Who Developed Novichok Poison Used on Sergei Skripal: ‘I’m Sorry’He helped make the secret poison used against a Russian ex-spy. Now Vil Mirzayanov looks on his handiwork with regret.
ADAM RAWNSLEY
TANYA BASU
03.14.18 5:28 AM ET
The person who understands the effects of novichoks best is Vil Mirzayanov, a scientist and later head of Foreign Technical Counterintelligence at the State Scientific Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology (GosNIIOKhT) in Moscow in the 1970s and 1980s, which allegedly produced the shadowy class of binary nerve agents known as the “novichoks” (newcomers). And he has a message for Skripal and his daughter: my bad.

“I’d tell him [Skripal] that I’m very sorry that I participated in the development of these weapons,” Mirzayanov told The Daily Beast.

GosNIIOKhT scientists developed the agents under a program codename “Folio” beginning in the 1980s. Mirzayanov spoke out about the covert program as the Soviet Union fell, earning him a prison term at home before he escaped to exile in the United States.

During the Cold War, the idea that a novichok agent would be used in a covert assassination seemed alien to Mirzayanov and his fellow scientists. The weapons, developed in intense secrecy by Soviet scientists, were originally designed for use in bombs and shells on a battlefield rather than a cloak-and-dagger assassination in a suburb in southern England.

Novichok (Russian: Новичо́к, "newcomer") is a series of nerve agents developed by the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 80s.[1] Russian scientists who worked on the development of the agents have claimed that they are the most deadly nerve agents ever made, with some variants possibly five to eight times more potent than VX.[2][3]

They were designed as part of a Soviet program codenamed "Foliant".[4] Initially designated K-84 and later renamed A-230, there are more than 100 Novichok variants.[5] The most versatile was A-232 (Novichok-5).[6]